


Nagavanshini

by avani



Series: Daughters-in-Law of the Dynasty [1]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: She will learn that poison can spring from the most unexpected of sources.





	Nagavanshini

Morning after morning her half-mad mother takes her to offer milk to the snake-hill behind their home, mumbling prayers under her breath. "If pleased," she mutters, "they shall protect us from peril: pestilence, impertinence--and poison!"  


She laughs, though she knows better than to risk her mother's rage. Poison, in the house of a very minor princess of no particular importance? Impossible.  


Mother scowls. "Don't," she warns. "You will learn, my dear, that poison can spring from the most unexpected of sources. From His Majesty, if he takes offense, from his advisors, even--" She sucks in a breath. "Even from you."

* 

Worst of all, her half-mad mother is never wrong. In the wildest of her ravings, something of the truth writhes to escape. But that is why her mother has a daughter: to serve as a weapon against her worries. 

She charms the King, cajoles his advisors into forgetting her mother's tantrums, commits herself to a course that ensures she need never sacrifice to a snake-hill to preserve their paltry existence. 

She stands crowned Queen, and it does no good: her mother's eyes are wide with betrayal. Severe, short-sighted old woman! Then let her be consigned to her self-inflicted suffering. 

* 

She does not travel to the snake-hill again; instead the snakes come to her. She hears them hiss caution into her ears at night--is this how it begins?--and they coil around her with concerns. 

She tastes the bitterness of poison when her first son is born, after hours of terrible labor. When, limp with pain, she commands her ladies take the boy away, she does not even notice his twisted left arm; but he will never believe it of her years later when she explains. 

She tastes the sweetness of milk only when her second son draws breath.

**Author's Note:**

> This is Grandmama Baahu, of course, and with every piece I write about her, I find myself developing more and more of my peculiar headcanon for her. She owes a great deal to queenofmahishmati's Amaravati and spiffycups' Sembiyan Mahadevi (and if you haven't met either of those ladies in fanfic yet, get thee hence to do so as soon as possible!) but is somehow not quite either of them. I imagine that she was a distant relative of the royal family of her time, who married well largely thanks to her own ingenuity.  
> * There is no canon support for Bijjaladeva blaming his mother specifically for rejecting him due to his disability, but well--every other man in this film series has mother issues, why not him, too?


End file.
